Tag: music

With every acetate we cut, we’re understanding more and more how miraculous it is to be able to capture and replay sound. Portable and accessible recording devices changed the lives of Americans in the 1920s and 30s. And one of the most important reasons they did, was that machines like our PRESTOs changed the way that radio broadcasts were made.

Before TV (but long after broadsheets) most Americans got their news and entertainment from their radios. 1920s radio shows were a far cry from the phone-prank-laden shock jock-hosted sound effect parades you hear during drive time today. Back then every round of applause or word of warning had to be made in the studio in real time.

But radio broadcasters realized the possibilities of field recorders right away, and dove right in, using them to create all kinds of messages for delayed broadcast. These “air checks” would include intros and outros for popular radio programs, news reports, recurring features that required content from outside the station, political messages, public service messages and more. It was the birth of syndication. Just imagine the faint crackle of record spinning every time you hear Ryan Seacrest start the Top 40 countdown…we have PRESTO to thank.

LISTEN: Kentucky Governor A.B. Chandler for the reelection of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936

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LISTEN: January 27, 1937 aircheck of WSM/Nashville’s coverage of the great Ohio River Flood

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These clips are from the archives of WHAS, LKY Radio in Kentucky. Radio geeks can hear dozens more vintage air checks on their website.

Throughout history, we have always been captivated by the tales of tragedy, misfortune and triumph in the news. And it seems every era has one particular news story that comes to define it, or at least melds that generation in morbid fascination. At the turn of the 19th century, a young woman was strangled by her beloved and drowned in a river, and the story spread like wildfire via the news broadsheets that were written to be sung and widely circulated all throughout the 1800s. As “Omie Wise” was passed around the country and eventually down through the generations, the lyrics morphed and took on new life and death as the song came to be more about murder stories than about Omie herself. When it was their turn to sing “Omie Wise,” The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne chose to recount a news story from our own lifetime, a tale so brutal and complex that it continues to be unshakeable.

To make a foil for poor Omie, Kara and John put poor John Doe on their Flipside, singing The Reverend’s original song “Wounded Knee.” We’ve mentioned before that recording with the PRESTOs can be a fraught experience, but the skips left in this acetate that we encountered while digitizing it seem to add to the charm of the song.

After listening, if you would like to further appreciate the beauty of the lyrics, a link is included below the acetate player to hear the version of “Wounded Knee” recorded for The Reverend John DeLore’s album Ode to an American Urn.

The tragic tale of Omie Wise has traveled the generations for more than two hundred years. Murdered rather than married by her beloved and thrown into a river, Omie is a warning to beware the wolf in disguise. In the back of a cozy local saloon in Brooklyn, the afternoon light worked its way through the window and The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne settled in to recount the chilling tale of Omie Wise’s murder. But true to the folk tradition, the duo added their own personal spin to the story.

The Flipside: The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne “Wounded Knee”

Kara and John had another tale to tell once Omie was conjured and put to rest. And their mesmerizing voices and guitars had the assembled historians and barkeeps transfixed. So we flipped the record, and they sang The Reverend’s own beautiful song “Wounded Knee” for a new feature of The 78 Project called The Flipside.

An age old and brutal choice: to marry for love or money? In the first side of Dawn Landes’ haunting 78, “The Brown Girl,” the noble Thomas chooses a plain brown girl with a dowry over his beautiful but land-less true love Ellender. Story songs like this one – which traveled from Scotland to the Appalachians over three hundred years – were the primetime dramas of the pre-television era. So the verses swiftly build into an epic, bloody tale with a twist. You’ll have to flip the record to find out how it ends…

It won’t be long now. By the time the week is out, you’ll be able to listen to a full track from one of our first recordings! Crackle, hiss, sirens, birds, cicadas, friends, voices, sadness, redemption, our PRESTOs have caught it all. And we made it digital so that you can hear it for yourself. Until then, here’s our full library of video teasers so far:

Hearing your voice made ghostly by a machine from the past can do strange things to a man. When The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne updated the classic American murder ballad “Omie Wise” for The 78 Project, we warned them that the chip left over from the needle carving a groove into the acetate record was extremely flammable. Ok, maybe we also hinted it would make a mighty beautiful flare. That’s not to say we condone setting the streets on fire. Or take credit for it. John and Kara made the magic, we just remember it.